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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26419012">Learning Styles</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlight_jukebox/pseuds/moonlight_jukebox'>moonlight_jukebox</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Criminal Minds (US TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fluff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:15:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,554</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26419012</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlight_jukebox/pseuds/moonlight_jukebox</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Reader has worked hard to get to the FBI, but a misunderstanding has her feeling insecure.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Spencer Reid/Reader, Spencer Reid/You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>184</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Learning Styles</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Requests: <br/>- I have a fic suggestion. Reader pretends to be dumb but is actually really smart. I’m thinking of that quote about marilyn ”you have to be really smart to pretend to be dumb”. One day spencer realizes that reader is smarter than she lets people know.</p><p>- Hi! Can I request a spencer reid x reader fic where reader isn’t great with numbers but brilliant with behaviour and humanities (i.e. literature, history, sociology, up to you)? Maybe a dash of insecurity to spice things up?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>My favorite professor in college told me that everyone learns differently; what works for one person won’t work in the same way for another. We are all different human beings that are shaped in different ways.</p><p>I had always been oddly insecure about my intelligence level. One of my earliest memories was my mother yelling at me while I sat at the kitchen table when I was in first grade. I was the only kid in my class who still hadn’t learned how to read. I just didn’t understand. All of my friends were progressing so much quicker than me and my mother was losing patience.</p><p>It wasn’t until my grandmother stepped in that everything changed. My elementary school teacher was training children to read by memorizing sight words, a concept I didn’t understand. When my grandmother sat down and taught me phonics. I distinctly remember <em>everything </em>snapping into place.</p><p>I was in 1<sup>st</sup> grade and reading at a 7<sup>th</sup>-grade level by Christmas. Once I finally understood my learning style, I really began to thrive.</p><p>But no matter what I did, I could still hear my mother yelling at me, telling me I was stupid.</p><p>In my line of work, I see just how much the throw away comments that parents make can shape a child’s development. Luckily, those comments just made me a bit insecure, not a murderer.</p><p>Up until I was 22, I wasn’t really sure <em>what </em>I wanted to do beyond this desire I had to help people. SSA David Rossi had come to guest lecture in one of my abnormal psych classes during undergrad. After I heard him speak, I was done. I couldn’t have done anything else with my life. I had obtained my master’s in psychology before I joined the FBI.</p><p>It took some time, but I was <em>finally </em>assigned to the Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico. I was so excited on my first day that I remember my hands physically shaking.</p><p>Until they weren’t.</p><p>I can still remember my first day <em>so </em>clearly. SSA Hotchner had introduced me to the team, saving the “best” for last.</p><p><em>“And this is Dr. Spencer Reid,” </em>he had said. <em>“He’s our expert on…well, everything.” </em></p><p>Reid was my age and he had his Ph.D. I remember feeling awed by him.</p><p>Until I didn’t.</p><p>
  <em>"I hold 3 Ph.D.'s in Chemistry, Engineering, and Mathematics. I also have BAs in psychology and sociology."</em>
</p><p>I remember my jaw almost hitting the floor. While I was impressed by him, I wasn’t insecure about my place on the team.</p><p>Until I was.</p><p>My grandmother may have helped me master reading, which opened the door to me mastering anything else I put my mind to…except math.</p><p>I was fine at statistics, luckily. You couldn’t get a psych degree without a ton of statistics work. But statistics was different, I could see the practical use of statistics. I just couldn’t wrap my head around calculus or algebra.</p><p>On my first case with the team, Reid had calculated some insane mathematical equations on the whiteboard, running down the probabilities and applying a mathematical formula to the unsub’s behavior.</p><p>It wasn't until later, after the case was solved when I was standing in front of the whiteboard that my confidence was hit. Reid had come into the room and saw me looking at his work.</p><p><em>“Don’t bother trying to understand it,</em>” he had said. <em>“You’d have to be a genius to understand what I do.” </em></p><p>I didn’t have a word to describe the feeling that settled in my stomach at his words, I wasn’t sure such a word existed. The feeling was cold and heavy, but also made my body burn with shame.</p><p>I had just offered him a tight smile before I left the room.</p><p>On the plane home I had made a decision. I was no match for Dr. Reid, I doubt anyone was. So, I would take myself out of the competition. I couldn’t get hurt if I wasn’t playing the game.</p><p>And that is how the next year of my life went. I allowed Dr. Reid to explain things to me that I was an expert in, never saying a word. I acted like I didn't understand concepts that I had written papers on. The only thing I didn't dumb down was my profiling skills. Those were necessary for my job and for saving lives.</p><p>I don’t think anyone realized what I was doing.</p><p>Until they did.</p><p>--</p><p>The team had been called to Colorado to assist in capturing a serial rapist.</p><p>All of our cases bothered me, every last one…but something about ones with this vile element really struck me.</p><p>We had the unsub’s name, Tyler Childress. He had spent time in prison for sexual assault and burglary. It seems while he was in prison, he spent time perfecting his methods; it was only by pure luck that we found his fingerprint inside the victim’s house, making him the main suspect.</p><p>When we paid Mr. Childress a visit, he had managed to get the drop on Prentiss and Morgan, allowing them to escape. Morgan was furious.</p><p>All of us were sitting around a conference table in the local prescient while we let Dr. Reid talk.</p><p>I was trying to be calm, I was, but my nails were digging into my palm so deeply I was worried I was about to draw blood.</p><p>“Guys,” the expert on everything said. “He has to have some sort of accomplice.”</p><p>Rossi just sighed. “But the profile doesn’t point to him being the sort to do well with others; he’s a narcissist.”</p><p>Reid wouldn’t budge. “I know that, but he isn’t intelligent enough to pull this off alone. He’s just not. He had an IQ test done when he was 20. He scored in the mentally handicapped range. I’m telling you he has to have help.”</p><p>“Are you sure, Reid?” Hotch asked.</p><p>“Positive. I have his results right here.”</p><p>“IQ tests aren’t a good measure of intelligence on their own.”</p><p>I was so startled that someone had contradicted Dr. Reid that it took me a second to realize it was <em>me </em>who had contradicted him.</p><p>He turned to face me; his brown eyes wide. “What?”</p><p><em>Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. </em>“IQ tests aren’t a good measure of intelligence.”</p><p>Dr. Reid <em>laughed. </em>He laughed at me like my comment was funny. “I don’t know where you heard that,” he began.</p><p>But I interrupted him. "IQ tests are classist and oftentimes racist. The man who invented the IQ test never intended for it to be used as a complete measure of intelligence. He regretted making the test.”</p><p>Reid sputtered. “You…it’s not racist!”</p><p>“Yes. It. Is.” I ground out. “If it wasn’t it wouldn’t be illegal to administer an IQ test to a black child in the state of California.”</p><p>"Wait, it's illegal to do that?" JJ asked, her brows drawn together.</p><p>"Yes. There was a court case in the 1970s over it. Teachers were using tests to separate white children from black children. The black children were put into special education classes they didn’t need to be in. Just because the teachers didn’t want those children in their classrooms.”</p><p>I should have stopped, but I was on a role. “They’re also inherently classist. How can you expect a child to answer a question about Romeo and Juliet if they haven’t heard of it?”</p><p>That had Dr. Reid scoffing. “Everyone has heard of it.”</p><p>I shot to my feet, unable to hold back anymore. “No, they haven’t. Children in underfunded schools that don’t have access to resources might not have heard about the most famous play in history because their school wasn’t able to provide the materials to teach them about it. There was a study done in a remote part of Russia <em>right after </em>the IQ test was invented. Every. Single. Person. Scored in the mentally handicapped range. <em>Because they didn’t understand.” </em></p><p>I knew my voice was rising but I couldn’t stop myself. “Once the researcher took the questions and applied them to things they understood, they all scored as above average. They didn’t understand math as an abstract concept, but they understood it when it was applied to their businesses, to something they actually knew about.”</p><p>I cleared my throat. “The test isn’t fair, it’s not equal. Tyler Childress didn’t go to a good school and he didn’t have a stable home life. You can’t use one measure to calculate his intelligence. He’s gotten away with 7 assaults so far that we know of. He’s not stupid.”</p><p>The entire room was <em>silent </em>once I had stopped speaking. I couldn’t bring myself to regret it though. What kind of person was I if I played dumb because I was afraid of being mocked when a monster was out there attacking women? No, those women deserved to have me at my best.</p><p>And I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t give it to them.</p><p>Rossi spoke first, his eyes twinkling when he looked at me. “Took you long enough,” he said. “But y/n is right. We trust the profile; we don’t let personal bias cloud the way. That’s how we catch this bastard.”</p><p>--</p><p>Later that day, we were cleaning up the conference room while the local police processed Tyler Childress.</p><p>Pathological narcissism is a complex disorder, but we followed the profile and Rossi was right. Hotch set up a press conference in which JJ and Prentiss took center stage. They tore Childress’s ego to shreds on live television.</p><p>His narcissism wouldn’t allow that to slide. He got angry, he made a mistake, and we got him before anyone else got hurt. </p><p>While the cat was out of the bag about my intelligence and that made me nervous, I couldn't regret any of it. I got to be the one to tell our last victim that we got him. I got to hug her while she cried because now that he was locked up, she felt like her healing could begin. I wasn’t sure if my rant about structural racism and the classism of IQ tests actually helped anything, but that didn’t really matter. There was one less monster in the shadows.</p><p>Today was a good day.</p><p>I was alone in the conference room, untacking photos from the evidence board when I heard someone clear their throat from behind me. I turned my head to meet the wide, honey brown eyes of Dr. Spencer Reid.</p><p><em>Oh boy</em>, I thought. “What’s up, Reid?”</p><p>He shifted from foot to foot, his hands twisting in front of him before he crossed his arms over his chest. “I asked Garcia to look into you.”</p><p>My eyebrows drew together. “I’m pretty sure any nefarious things I had done would have popped up on my initial background check.”</p><p>“Right, I didn’t mean like that,” he mumbled, the apples of his cheeks turning pink. “I asked her to look into you academically.”</p><p>
  <em>Shit. </em>
</p><p>He went on. “You double majored in psychology and sociology before you got a master’s in cultural psychology. She pulled your thesis. I just read it.”</p><p>“I see.” I turned my attention back to the board.</p><p>“You also guest lecture on cross-cultural psychology at Georgetown several times a year. And you’ve co-authored two papers since I’ve known you.”</p><p><em>Meh, it’s three. But that doesn’t matter. </em>“Did you read those too?”</p><p>I took his silence as confirmation.</p><p>He was so quiet I <em>almost </em>thought he had left, but the crackle of energy I felt in the air told me he hadn’t. “Do you need something, Dr. Reid?”</p><p>"Why didn't you get your Ph.D.?"</p><p>I had answered that question many, many times. “I didn’t need a doctorate to do what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to waste time. Once I figured out what I wanted, I charged at it.” Which was a far more honest answer than most people got about that from me.</p><p>“W-why did you pretend to be dumb?” he rasped out, causing me to look back at him. “32 days ago, you let <em>me </em>explain the long-term effects of gerrymandering and the complex causes of poverty.”</p><p>“Of course, I did,” I said, frowning. “Why wouldn’t I?”</p><p>“One of the <em>papers </em>you authored was about generational poverty.”</p><p>“Just because I know a lot about something doesn’t mean I can stop listening to information. That sort of thinking breeds ignorance.” I smiled, unable to not tease him just a little bit.</p><p>Reid took a step closer to me. “You didn’t answer my question.”</p><p>I just shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t have a good answer.”</p><p>In all the months I had known him, Spencer Reid had never touched me, not even so much as a finger brushing against mine when he handed me something. That fact is why I was so startled when I felt his hand on my upper arm, turning me towards him.</p><p>He licked his lips, his eyes darting around. “Did everyone else know?”</p><p>I shook my head, my teasing mood long gone. "No. I mean, clearly, Rossi suspected but…No, I didn't tell anyone else."</p><p>“I just don’t understand. You’re brilliant.”</p><p>I scoffed. “No, I’m not. I’m decent a psychology, sociology, stuff like that. I can’t apply math to behavior to find patterns. I can’t even calculate how much something is gonna cost when it’s on sale without a calculator half the time.”</p><p>‘What do you…” Reid trailed off. “Wait. The very first case. You were looking at the evidence board.”</p><p>
  <em>Goddamn eidetic memory. </em>
</p><p>The boy wonder was on a roll now. “I told you that you’d have to…is that why you didn’t tell me?”</p><p>What else could I do? I just nodded.</p><p>Those brown eyes closed, and he let out a groan. “I said that because I thought you were going to…I was worried…” He huffed out a breath and opened his eyes. “I wanted you to like me. I didn’t want you to think I was just a nerd.” </p><p>Now I was confused. “Why?”</p><p>Spencer Reid’s blush went all the way down his neck. “Well…I just…Morgan said I should just talk to you. But I’m not…I’m not good at that. I panic, then I start to ramble. Like I’m doing now…”</p><p>“Reid,” I interrupted. “I’m not playing dumb now. I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”</p><p>“I like you,” he blurted out right before he smacked both of his hands over his face. “Oh my god. I sound like a child.” I thought I heard him mutter <em>idiot</em> under his breath. “Emily says that my IQ gets slashed to 60 whenever I see a pretty girl.”</p><p>Much like that moment all those years ago when I was a child, I felt everything click into place. <em>Oh.</em></p><p>I couldn't suppress my smile any longer. I rose up on my tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Well, we've already gone over how IQ tests aren't a good measure of overall intelligence." </p><p>With that, I quickly stepped away and hurried out of the conference room, leaving a stunned genius in my wake. When I turned back to look at him, I saw his fingers brushing over the place where my lips had just been.  </p>
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